HW 23: Initial Thoughts on Cool

"Cool" is a term people use to describe someone who they like or admire. Someone can be admired for several different reasons, people are mainly admired because they have something the other person doesn't have. However if this were true then everyone would be cool because everyone has some sort of desirable trait. Technically everyone is considered cool by someone, even the most "un-cool" person is loved by their family (hopefully). In our culture we have an average consensus for what cool should be, even though most people try not to be obviously cool, or try not to show that they're trying to be cool. This definition of cool differs from race to race, area to area etc. there is no universal "cool" but we can see how people might think they're cool.

One interesting thing about the word "cool" is how closely it's definition is related to admiration. I would say that "cool" is a word to describe admiration on a scale, even though most people won't say they admire the person they think is cool, because that statement is too sentimental which is un-cool (for men at least). However when you replace the word "cool" with admire you end up with some odd behavior. For instance, people can be viewed as cool based on the things they have, in this particular example it'll be a car. The sentence "I think he's cool because he has a nice car" can be changed to "I admire him because he has a nice car". When you look at the word "cool" that way it pertains to desirable traits and possessions, instead of the word admire which has a more meaningful definition and relates to personal traits rather than possessions.

The word "cool" is largely undefined, we all use it but we haven't really tried to define it. Naturally if we all use a word with no real common definition we're going to make our own meanings. Because people are throwing around virtually thousands of definitions of the same word we're all somewhat confused when we look at cool on our own so we base the word on things that are universally cool like celebrities or TV and Movie characters etc. "Cool" has become (or possibly originated as) a commercial tool to sell things, since cool involved material items as well as traits. Another piece of proof that "cool" is commercial is that the stereotypical "popular" or "cool" kids are rich and are viewed as cool because of their clothes and money.